A Gothic Christmas

Jo and her October elf, Carol, set a challenging challenge at Christmas Kickstart this month: Gothic Christmas! You wouldn't believe how many different ideas I played with and ultimately rejected. In the end I've combined with the Die Cut Divas who want to see shaped cards this month.

Gothic architecture seemed like it might offer some inspiration. Unusually for me I've gone for a sort of hybrid approach here and included some imagery printed from the computer. I found some lovely fantasy stained glass images from an Etsy seller (here) and after playing with the idea of making some of the circular images into baubles (I might come back to that!) I returned to the initial window idea as this is such a classic gothic shape. I also decided candles can be quite a gothic element so added a chunky church style one with some winter greenery.

The mat and the card itself are hand cut (I basically eyeballed and pencilled in the border round the printed image after cutting that out). I decided I wanted a bit of texture - that got added by rubbing a ball tool over the card on an embossing folder and moving it around pretty randomly.

The candle and fir branches are die cut, the ivy is fussy cut from another window image and I've added some Stickles and Wink of Stella to the flame and Glossy Accents to the jewelled bits of the frame. The colours are richer in real life, I think maybe the amount of black confuses the camera!

Stamps: Compliments of the Season (Waltzingmouse Stamps, no longer with us)

Paper:
Cryogen white
Black

Ink: 
Versamark by Tsukineko
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade, Barn Door, Pine Needles, Antique Linen)

Other:
Gold detail embossing powder
Fantasy Stained Glass digital images (Old World Pages on Etsy)
Candle die (Elizabeth Craft Designs)
Stickles (Candy Cane)
Brickwork 3D embossing folder (Tim Holtz/Sizzix)
Glossy Accents
Spica glitter pen (green)
Wink of Stella (clear) 

Thanks for stopping by!

Penny pusher!

I’m combining a few challenges today — this week’s mixed media challenge at Splitcoast (here) is an intriguing technique that produces a sort of wonky grid by pushing a coin with a pencil. It made me think of the slightly off-square pastries in the current photo inspiration challenge at Time Out and I made it a trio by using a “thank you” sentiment to fit another Splitcoast challenge.

As well as the pastries at Time Out, I took inspiration from the orange, yellow, beige and brown colours and the fluted outline of pattypan squash always makes me think of a flower!

The sunflower and leaf sprays were in my bits box, the background piece had the grid filled in with watercolour and Copic markers, the pencil lines were traced over with a fineliner and the cross over points have little copper gel pen details.

Stamps: Enjoy quotes (Katzelkraft, no longer with us)

Paper: Bristol board

Ink: Brilliance by Tsukineko (Pearlescent Chocolate) 

Other:
Copic markers
Watercolours
Fineliner
Copper gel pen
Sunflower Serenade Dies (Spellbinder) 
Fresh Foliage die (Memory Box)

Thanks for stopping by!

Poinsettia and snowflakes

I’m managing to play early in the month for CAS Christmas this time, I might even manage another one later! The theme this time is poinsettia. I had most of this made yesterday but it was lacking something. Today's featured stamper challenge at Splitcoast gave me the final idea and I added a few die cut snowflakes for extra interest and am now happier with it.

I’ve had this Penny Black stamp set for at least a couple of years and have only just opened the packaging — better late than never, eh? The poinsettia was stamped twice, fussy cut and layered up. I used a gold acrylic paste for the centre and once each little blob had skinned over but not thoroughly hardened, I pressed down with a ball stylus to make little dimples.

A debossed frame and a simple sentiment strip finish it off. The strip is slightly curved.

Stamps: 
Wonder (Penny Black Transparent)
Bright Season (Waltzingmouse Stamps, no longer with us)

Paper: Cryogen white

Ink: 
Versafine by Tsukineko (Onyx Black) 
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Pearlescent Ivy)

Other: 
Zig Clean Colour marker (red) 
Coloured pencils 
Gold acrylic paste 
Snowflake die (Waltzingmouse Stamps, no longer with us) 
Labels dies (Tim Holtz/Sizzix) 
Double stitched rectangle dies (Moonstone) 
Corner Chomper

Thanks for stopping by! 

Link in the chain — September

It’s time for the reveal of the Card Chain Challenge cards that flew around the globe for September. There were 29 players this time and lots of lovely different takes on the options — one of the great things about the reveal post is seeing so many styles and approaches to the same set of prompts all in one place!

For some reason I really struggled this month. My first effort (which took up an entire crafty day) ended up in the bin after I slept on it and decided nope, I still hated it! So, unusually for me I ended up with only the colour palette of peony, scarlet and plum (although I guess my little butterflies might count as tone on tone).

I didn’t have a suitable pink ink so I scribbled a watercolour pencil onto a piece of acetate and smooshed the background with that. The butterfly is heat embossed and coloured with a mix of Zig Clean Colour and water colour pencils. The antennae are hand drawn as there was no way I was going to attempt fussy cutting those!

A little scatter of clear sequins finished things off 

Stamps: Wings (Darkroom Door)

Paper: Watercolour

Ink: 
Versafine by Tsukineko (Onyx Black)
Memories (Soft Rose)

Other:
Stitched rectangle A6 size die (Paper Rose)
Water colour pencils
Zig Clean Colour marker
Clear iridescent sequins
Detail embossing powder (black)
Fineliner 

There are still a few days to sign up for the next chain if you would like to join the fun:

Woodland greetings

The CAS Christmas challenge for September is all about woodland critters — I'm just managing to sneak in before month end!

This card ended up taking a very long time to make — nothing to do with the card itself, everything to do with the fact I cut a mask for a stamp (pine cone) and then absolutely could not find the stamp I'd just used. Don't you just hate it when that happens?! After about an hour of searching I gave up and went with just the branches - our squirrel friend will have to keep searching for his Christmas lunch!

Simple stamping, colouring and a few sequins here, nothing fancy. I did add a bit of glitter pen to some of the pine needles for a bit of festive sparkle. The sweet little squirrel is definitely a red — he has those tufty ears that the greys lack.

Stamps:
Squirrel surprise (Carabelle Studio, no longer with us) 
Pine Branch Small and Merry Christmas (Lesia Zgharda)

Paper: Cryogen white

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Coffee Bean, Pearlescent Ivy)
Memento Luxe by Tsukineko (Love Letter)

Other:
Copic markers
Coloured pencils
Clear iridescent sequins
Spica glitter pen (green)
Fineliner
Pan Pastel (Pthalo green tint)
Corner Chomper

Thanks for stopping by!

An autumn birthday

I'm combining a few challenges today. Retro Rubber has a tic tac toe board and I really wanted to play along with this lovely stamp, using the splatter/leaves/kraft row of the board. The stamp has too much fine detail to give a good impression on anything textured and kraft inevitably has a bit too much, even if you use a stamping platform and have a few goes at it. I eventually settled for stamping on smooth and framing in kraft.

We Love Stamping has a trees and leaves theme this month so this is my second entry there and the current challenge at Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers is all about leaves (sorry girls, no snark this time!).

I kept this pretty simple as it's for my brother and like most of the men I make cards for, he doesn't really go in for a lot of "doodads". Stamped, coloured with markers, masked and then ink blended some Distress round the leaves and finished with some splattered ink in the same colour.  

Stamps:
Oak Branch (Beeswax stamps, I've had mine since 2013)
Essential Messages (Hero Arts, retired)

Paper:
Bristol board
Kraft

Ink:
Adirondack dye ink by Ranger (Espresso)
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Tumbled Glass) 
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Pearlescent Chocolate)

Other:
Happy Stamp n Cut (Hero Arts)
Copic markers
Stitched square frame dies (Paper Rose) 

A robot celebration

I'm not typically a sticker user but recently the lovely Jo at Dotty Pudding sent me a few to play with, including a couple of cute robots. This week I was struggling to come up with an idea for a friend’s birthday card — remembering that her academic research includes software for robotics at about the time I moved Jo's card to a new spot gave me my eureka moment.

The flow chart elements (computer generated) are a riff on something in one of our friend's research papers (yes, I went looking for extra inspiration!), background elements are a circuit board stamp; Jo’s cute robot is part of a set she got here. He’s raised up a little with some cardstock scraps. 

I used up a few extra stars left over from the tomato paste tube embellishments I cut recently for the Die Cut Divas "recycle" challenge (on this card) so I'm linking up again there. They form part of the celebratory explosion of shiny things (nail art gems being the others).

Stamps: Circuit board backgrounder (Cornish Heritage Farms, no longer with us)

Paper: Cryogen white

Ink: Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Rusty Hinge)

Other:
Robot sticker
Fineliner
Tomato paste tube metal 
Confetti die (Mama Elephant)
Nail art gems
Computer generated text

Thanks for stopping by!

Olive lover

September’s challenge at We Love Stamping is all about trees and leaves. I’ve bucked the autumn trend in terms of classic colours but olives are generally picked from September onwards so I’m still being seasonal!

The branches and olives are stamped in a fairly light grey ink so this is pretty much “no line” colouring. I filled in a bit of pale background colour with a swipe of Pan Pastel and used pencils for the colouring with some white paint pen to accentuate the blossom (artistic licence, I know it wouldn’t be there with the ripe olives!). A few clear sequins stand in for the Mediterranean sun shimmering through the trees.

Stamps:
New Awakening (Studio Light)
Birthday (Letter It range by Ranger)
Happy (from a Wasltzingmouse stamps set)

Paper: Bristol board

Ink:
Hero Arts shadow ink (Soft Granite)
Versafine by Tsukineko (Onyx Black)

Other:
Pan Pastel (Pthalo green tint)
Colored pencils
Posca paint pen
Clear iridescent sequins 

Recyled rustic reindeer

Christmas Kickstart this month is all about the reindeer with host Jo and guest elf Loll looking forward to some reindeer games filling up the gallery. Meanwhile, the Die Cut Divas are focusing on the three Rs — recycle, reuse, repurpose!

I've combined those two challenges and come up with three Rs of my own — a recycled rustic reindeer! All the die cut parts other than the stars are cut from a board envelope (you know, the ones that come from that global giant online retailer). I wasn't sure the wafer thin dies would go through but it cut perfectly and obviously it posed no problem for the steel rule die used for the banner and laurel wreath.

The gold stars are the other bit of recycling — they're die cut from a tomato paste tube, one of my favourite materials for homemade metallic embellishments.

The reindeer has a strip of card behind the top of his head to push it forward slightly and the antlers are not stuck down at all. I curved the sentiment slightly to match the curve of the banner before stamping, added some stamped plaid tone on tone for an extra rustic touch, then assembled it all.

Stamps:
Plaid Scrapblock stamp (Cornish Heritage Farms, no longer with us)
Sentiment from an old Technique Tuesday stamp set

Ink: 
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Vintage Photo)
Memento Luxe ink by Tsukineko (Love Letter)
Adirondack pigment ink by Ranger (Snowcap)

Paper:
Red, ivory and board envelope

Other:
Cool Yule thinlets dies (Tim Holtz/Sizzix)
Regal Crest bigz die (Tim Holtz/Sizzix)
Confetti die (Mama Elephant)
Copic markers
Coloured pencil (pale pink)
Glossy Accents by Ranger
Tomato paste tube metal
White paint pen by Posca

Thanks for stopping by! You can find details of both challenges by clicking the graphics below:

Link in the chain — August

The second of the month can only mean one thing — time for the reveal of August's cards for the Card Chain challenge where 26 players exchanged happy mail around the globe.

This time I chose the theme of elephants and/or mice and the sketch to play with and my card has travelled to the lovely Gail in Norway.

I planned to use the mouse from the Katzelkraft Russian Cats set but having got it out of the cupboard I put it down somewhere and promptly lost it! In the end I decided this little Penny Black mouse would make a cheerful substitute, I think he's about to offer that daisy as a little gift in an attempt to lift poor Ellie's mood. Hopefully the cats will turn up now I don’t need them!

I did stamp and mask the mouse before stamping the elephant but made the mistake of doing it in a lighter ink colour and it really didn’t look right so I fussy cut a second one and stuck it over the top. The flower that's part of the stamp got a bit lost somehow so I made a daisy to stick over it. It's a couple of die cuts that are supposed to be flower centres and a circle made with a hole punch.

Stamps:
Les Jungles (Katzelkraft, no longer with us)
Enjoy Sayings (Katzelkraft, no longer with us)
Critter Party (Penny Black Transparent)

Paper: Bristol board

Ink:
Versafine by Tsukineko (Onyx Black)
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Tumbled Glass, Broken China)

Other:
Coloured pencils
Christmas rose dies (Sue Wilson/Creative Expressions)
Corner Chomper 

Thanks for stopping by! The September sign up is open for a few more days, click the badge for details if you’d like to join.